With great expectations and excitations, confronting their most important season in 15 years and their most difficult schedule in team history, the Broncos must Own The Home.

Once, the Broncos were the most dominant, fear-provoking home team in the NFL.

In the franchise’s 17 double-digit victory years, the Broncos won 85.9 percent of their regular-season games at the old and new stadiums. The home record for those 17 seasons (during a 29-season span from 1977-2005) was a remarkable 116-19.

When the Broncos have won 10 or more games overall, at home they’ve finished 6-2 seven times, 6-1 once, 7-1 in four seasons and a perfect 8-0 for five years (and 24-0 over a three-year period).

The past six years, the Broncos have become a common garden-variety home team, losing 52.1 percent — 25-of-48. They’ve had only one winning season — 5-3 in 2007. They’ve finished 4-4 three times and 3-5 twice, including last season when the Broncos were blown out by the Lions and the Patriots and closed the regular season with a humiliating 7-3 loss to the Chiefs.

With Kyle Orton, and then Tim Tebow, at quarterback, the Broncos were outscored at home 185-130, averaging only 16.3 points per.

Since the Broncos lost to the Steelers in the AFC championship at home in the 2005 season, they’ve been crushed at home seven times — giving up more than 40 points in four games and a devastating 59 — count ’em — 59 to the Raiders in 2010.

From 2006-11, the Broncos had a 7-11 mark against the AFC West — and were swept at home last year.

They’ve been beaten at Starship Enterprise Stadium during that dreadful stretch in Denver by the likes of the Steelers (twice), Peyton Manning and the Colts (twice), the Jags and coach Jack Del Rio (twice), the Raiders (the past four seasons) and the Chargers (five of six, and it should have been six).

The Broncos have become as awful at home as France.

For a glorious span, the Broncos ruled on their field as Great Britain formerly did on the oceans.

John Elway was a major reason for the dominance. When he started games at quarterback from 1983-98, the Broncos compiled an 86-17-1 record.

After Elway took command of the football operations last year, he told me Job 1 for No. 7 was to return the Broncos to power at home. As a fan, he too had been embarrassed by the Broncos’ decline and fall in Denver at The House John Built.

There was one, bright shining moment for the Broncos in six years @Mile High.

In the playoff game last Jan. 8, Tebow threw to Demaryius Thomas on the first play of overtime, and the 80-yard touchdown produced a triumph over the shocked Steelers.

Manning was as masterful at winning at his home as Elway at his house.

Will the Manning Magic be the same in Denver as it was in Indianapolis? Will the Broncos return us now to those good old days? Will 5,200 feet above sea level once more cause gasping visiting teams to vanish into the thin air?

Will the Broncos Own The Home?

The Broncos have returned to orange jerseys just in time for Manning’s arrival.

The new offense for the Men of Orange is Xceler18 — a no-huddle, hurry-up-and-wait complex, perplexing combination of what Manning did successfully with the Colts in the passing game and what Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy did with Willis McGahee in the running game.

Craig Morton and Haven Moses were the M&M Connection with the Broncos in 1977. The Broncos of 2012 will have the 3M Backfield with Manning, McGahee and Moreno (Knowshon). Rookie Ronnie Hillman is the whippet. Demaryius is Deep Threat; Eric Decker is Manning’s main man; and Brandon Stokley and Jacob Tamme are the receiving links between the Colts and the Broncos.

While Manning cuts that meat on offense, Del Rio will chop that wood — his famous mantra from the 2003 Jaguars — on defense.

Del Rio offers the Three Horsemen — Champ Bailey, Elvis Dumervil and Von Miller — and the Three W’s — Warren, Wolfe and Woodyard (and, at some point, maybe Williams) to construct a defense upon.

The schedule is brutal.

So they have to stand up at home. To reach the double-digit level for the first time since 2005, they must win seven or eight games in Denver. That feat is feasible.

It starts in the regular season Sunday night where it left off at home in the postseason — with the Steelers.

And there is, as Dorothy, the Dalai Lama and Curly Lambeau said, no place like home.

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